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169 43 Morning Safari Takes Us for a Ride Friday 1st June 2007 For quite a very long time now, the English-language interactive early morning talk show broadcast live over the national station of Radio Cameroon has actually been taking its audience for a ride; and a rough ride indeed. This programme which occupies a rather demanding prime slot, we believe, is targeted at an audience that expects to be treated to thought-provoking issues of crucial interest to a nation that, from all indications, has lost its sense of direction. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Serious-minded listeners are mindlessly served a tasteless porridge of blabber for breakfast. What comes across on ‘Morning Safari’ is an incoherent babble from an improvised mutual admiration club of a randomly selected crop of broadcasters who give the impression of having been jolted, half-asleep, from their beds to the studio, with a drowsy notion of what their duty to inform and educate is all about. Topics for discussion are haphazardly chosen by proponents and propagators of issues they themselves do not master or have bothered to master. Issues are broached and discussed, not only amateurishly, but in an annoyingly tentative manner that leaves much to be desired by a highly demanding and critical audience which expects journalists to do their homework; that is to be informed in order to inform. One critic remarked: “These Safari boys, perhaps, should first of all be informed before they can inform.” The blatantly ad-hoc manner in which the programme is conceived and operated only confirms the aphorism that “talk is cheap.” And the talk on Morning Safari is cheap. Every member of the mutual admiration club chimes in with half-baked ideas, inconsequential observations, uninformed 170 opinions, disjointed and illogical statements, childish argumentation, a flimsy and approximate mastery of facts foisted down the throats of helpless listeners. The majority of listeners who have the means and bother to phone in are those with a personal agenda, which usually does not have any bearing on the whimsical topic of discussion. The rather capricious choice of topics, the deliberate attempt to avoid a soul-searching examination of any given issue, the disorganised and confusing debate that has become a hallmark of the programme constitute one more gimmick that Cameroon’s povertystricken taxpayers cannot afford. CRTV is financed by citizens who demand their money’s worth. Granted that a talk show is basically conversational and allows for a certain degree of colloquialism, this should not be an excuse for laxity in language. The media ought to set language standards that can be emulated by society, especially pupils and students. Morning Safari has not only failed to set proper language standards but has also been promoting sloppy diction. We do not expect our broadcasters to speak through their nostrils like white men, but for heaven’s sake, there is something known as Received Pronunciation (R.P) which has been widely accepted as the universal standard for the English language. One does not have to go to London to find R.P because it is right there in the dictionary. Morning Safari, of course, has its positive side in that it provides an opportunity for those who can afford it to express their opinion and that it occasionally raises important issues which have provoked spirited debate. The programme, despite it defects, can be improved upon if the panellists would take the trouble to do some minimal research on the topic of discussion so as to make the programme more informative and less speculative. Some homework and a little dose of intellectual humility would ensure a more comfortable ride on Morning Safari. S-N F. ...

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